Our Thankful Tree

This year I ordered a bunch of cute crafty things (I need lots of help when it comes to being crafty) from Oriental Trading Company. My favorite thing was this cute bulletin board tree. We put it on our pantry door and Scott LOVED writing things he was thankful for on each of the leaves and putting them on the tree. If you are interested in ordering this tree for next year, you can find it here. Since I know you can't read what is written on the leaves, here is the list:

Scott:
It is almost December
Tennis
Bowling
Chocolate chip cookies
My clock
Lightning McQueen shoes
My silly friend Zach
For getting $100 (he wishes...)

Charlotte:
Going to class with bells, stamps and bubbles (all the highlights of her Little Gym class)
Skittles
Kitties
Princesses
Trees

Mommy (me):
Pumpkin pie
My friends

Daddy (Drew):
Mommy (good answer)

Zach:
Playing with my brother

Grandma:
Giving presents
Family vacations to Hawaii

Living my childhood dreams...

I had better start this post by first stating that I am now and have always been a nerd. Just ask my brother and sister. When I was about 6 years old, my grandma asked me what I REALLY wanted. My response? A giant calculator that counts all the way to 100! I had big dreams.

So today Scott, Charlotte and I were in the grocery store when we saw a HUGE calculator. I spotted it first, but didn't say anything. As soon as Scott saw it, of course he desperately wanted it. And my 6-year-old dream came rushing back to memory... How could I pass such a fabulous item up, especially when it was $6?

Scott spend much of the afternoon playing with it. He would yell to me every once in a while, "Mommy, guess what number it is now? 192,923,234!" My favorite was that he called it a 'compulator' - which makes sense if you combine 'computer' and 'calculator'.

My nerdiness lives on... Here is Scott with the giant calculator in action:

And here would be Cindy (my sister) and Kelly's (my sister-in-law) reaction to all of this:

Early Christmas Miracle!

I really hate having pictures taken of the kids... Wait, that isn't quite accurate. I love having the pictures of them, but I hate the process of actally getting the portraits taken. The last time we went to get photos taken of all the Evers cousins, Charlotte had a major meltdown and the pictures were not the adorable vision I had of 3 smiling children. So I got up my nerve to try again for Christmas pictures. I had low expectations and just hoped that Charlotte wouldn't throw a tantrum (which is rare for her) and that both kids would at least LOOK at the camera - smiling was optional. But I was pleasantly surprised with the result! The kids weren't ecstatic to have the pictures taken, but at least there were no tears! The In-and-Out bribe did the trick:

This year's Thankful Turkey

Last year in preschool, Scott made a Thankful Turkey with Miss Cathy that was my FAVORITE art project. Here is a link to the picture of last year's turkey. So here is the unveiling of this year's turkey and the things Scott is thankful for:

In case you can't read the feathers in the picture, they say:

1) Star Wars Blast 1-2-3 (Not quite sure what this is, but Laurie H. says it may have something to do with a Wii game Scott played with Jacob and Jonah.)

2) When my mommy makes rice crispy treats

3) Crayons

4) Computer games

5) Typing

So the last feather reminds me that I need to do another post with more of Scott's notes. He's written some excellent ones recently... Stay tuned for that one!

Annual Primary Program

This year Scott is a Sunbeam in Primary. For those of you who have no clue what this means, in our church Primary is for kids ages 3-11, and Sunbeams is the 3 to 4-year-old class. So Sunday was the annual Primary program... I tried to prepare Scott for the big event bribing him with 8 chocolate chip cookies if he stayed up on the stand and was a good boy. I had pretty low expectations for him actually singing along with the rest of the kids. He told me Sunday morning that he didn't want to sing the 4th verse of I Am a Child of God because he didn't know the words. But Zach (his best friend) knows ALL the words. Impressive, Zach!

Boy, was I in for a surprise! Not only did Scott stay on the stand the whole time (with the exception of one potty break), but he SANG! I couldn't believe he knew the words to most all of the songs, except for the 4th verse of I am a Child of God, which he had already been approved to skip. It just goes to show that kids ARE listening and learning, even when you think they have no clue what you are trying to teach them. I was a huge wimp through the whole thing... I cried on just about every single song! It was just adorable to see my sweet little boy up there singing those special songs. And by the way, he was wearing his little man shirt and tie from this post. Too bad I couldn't take video...

One of my favorite moments was how Scott jumped every time he sang the word TRUST in the phrase, "Teaching me how to TRUST and obey..." I'm pretty sure they didn't teach the kids to jump at that moment, but if you know the song, jumping at that point does fit the music. The other moment I enjoyed was watching Scott and Zach and two of the girls walk out for their potty break, all dressed nicely with shirts tucked in. Then a few minutes later they walk back in and Scott and Zach's shirts are both completely hanging out. Hey, at least we got them to wear ties!

Celebrating the month of Halloween!

Where should I begin??? Halloween is not a holiday to celebrate on one day alone... Seems like this year I realized for the first time that the Halloween includes the pumpkin patch trip and wear-your-costume-preschool-day and the church Trunk-or-Treat activity and the neighborhood BOO tradition... Trick-or-Treating on the 31st is such a huge deal because we have had a million activities leading up to and anticipating this culminating event! So my next several posts will include how fun it has been for us this year celebrating Halloween!

The Main Event

And the crowning event of the month, October 31st... The REAL trick-or-treat adventure! Fortunately the weather cooperated and didn't rain while we were out. So we had 4 kids (Scott, Charlotte, my niece Elle and our neighbor Alex) and about 8 adults (me, Drew, my mom and dad, brother Jeff, sister-in-law Kelly and neighbors Tony and Cristina). We are pretty lucky to have lots of kids living close by, so it was easy to just hit a bunch of houses in our neighborhood and watch those candy buckets fill up.

Charlotte's method was to stand at the door long after the other kids had run off to the next house. She did not understand that after they give you candy, you say "thank you" and walk away. She would just look at people with those enormous brown eyes, holding her candy bucket. Consequently, she had the biggest haul for the night because her cuteness and persistence earned her extra candy at each door. Seriously, those eyes are weapons.

Scott had a few great comments for the evening... One was something like, "I don't like peanut butter. I want that one." To another person he said, "Hey, I haven't seen you before." And at the end he was SO tired from carrying his super heavy candy bucket. Life is hard when you are a pirate and people are giving you free candy.

Here is Charlotte stealing from Scott's candy. I have a picture of my younger sister doing EXACTLY this same thing when she was probably about 2. Must be a second child thing...

Who knew my family was so artistic?

Now that carving pumpkins is SO much easier with the fancy tools and templates you can buy, we are becoming quite artistic with our pumpkins. My dad is especially good...

Charlotte absolutely LOVED helping Grandma clean out the pumpkin guts. We were all shocked since this is a girl that says just about everything is "too scary." Here are some photos of the artwork in progress as well as the final results:

The Third Annual Pumpkin Farm Pilgramage

In the middle of October we made the drive to Wheatland again this year to the Bishop's Ranch Pumpkin Farm. What a fun place! The train ride was a big hit this year, as was running around in the pumpkin patch looking for just the right pumpkin. What was not so popular for the under-5-years-old crowd was posing adorably for photos. We came home with the fabulous apple cider, a couple homemade corn dogs, a few pumpkins with personality, but no cute pictures of both kids willingly sitting on pumpkins. These will have to do:

"Smile, Scott!"
"Don't try quite so hard this time."

"One more try! I guess that will have to do..."
The only decent picture of Charlotte.

Trunk or Treat!

A week after the visit to the pumpkin patch we enjoyed the annual ward Trunk or Treat activity. Although Scott was really bothered that we kept saying "trunk" instead of "trick". Our wonderful neighbors Tony and Cristina came with their adorable boys, Alex and Christopher. And we were extra lucky to have my little niece, Elle, with us too! The kids were very patient waiting through dinner for the main event. Needless to say, the night was a big hit!